


the night was long, the hours lonely

by everybodyknowseverybodydies



Category: The Last Unicorn - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, forever incomplete :(, this is from 2015 and it's aged surprisingly well so I guess here you go??
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 14:37:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16812631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everybodyknowseverybodydies/pseuds/everybodyknowseverybodydies
Summary: “I swear I’ve tried everything. Nothing works. Nothing works. I’m not a messenger or a bearer or a dwelling here, I’m a fool and a nuisance and a clown, Molly, I’m a puppet—”





	the night was long, the hours lonely

**Author's Note:**

> as I said in the tags this is from 2015 (June of 2015 to be specific) but I feel like it's held up pretty well with time despite the fact I have no idea where I was going with it, if anywhere, so! here's a drabble-ish collection of snippets; I hope you enjoy!

He was cold and tired, and his hands were unsteady as a newborn colt’s legs as he tried to raise the cup Molly gave him to his lips. “I swear I’ve tried everything. Nothing works. Nothing works. I’m not a messenger or a bearer or a dwelling here, I’m a fool and a nuisance and a clown, Molly, I’m a puppet—”

She sat across from him and he fell silent. The cat leapt soundless into her lap and curled up there, purring as her hands absently found its fur. “Schmendrick.”

“Sometimes I think she’s as much a puppeteer as he is. Not on purpose, of course, but still.” His voice was bitterer than the dark liquid in his cup.

She shook her head. “Don’t say that, she isn’t—it’s hardly her fault that she makes you want to do anything she asks and do nothing but watch her all day at the same time. She doesn’t know herself most of the time.”

Schmendrick was about to answer when Lir came in with a stack of paper and ink-stained hands. “Molly,” he said with a lilting child’s voice, “I’ve got another one; would you look at it for me?”

He saw the prince’s hopeful eyes and Molly’s tired smile. She held out her hands. The cat complained at the loss of petting, and it was the only sound for a moment hung in the air. “Of course, milord.”

The magician’s throat felt tight, and he couldn’t say why. Lir handed over the stack of paper and threw his cloak back over his shoulders in a hero’s stance. “I’ll come back,” promised the prince, “when you’re through.”

He left. She dropped her chin into her hands, tawny eyes skimming the first page. “Well. It isn’t the worst I’ve heard,” she noted.

Schmendrick snorted. “No, Cully’s songs were worse I imagine.”

“Cully’s songs!” Molly gave a short laugh. “Very few things could be worse than those; Lir at least doesn’t have to invent pretentious tales of good deeds.”

The cat rubbed its head along the bottoms of her ribs. She bit her tongue and dropped a hand to its head, more a reflex than anything else. “Have you found anything?” His voice was soft. She thought of the unicorn, whose mane was softer yet, and shook her head.

“I’ve looked. No wine in the kitchens anywhere. And no rhyme or reason to the clock.” Her eyes lowered for a moment. “She hasn’t been down here in a while,” she began hesitantly, half-expecting him to chide her for expecting the Lady Amalthea to come to the kitchens.

He did not. “Have you been to her?”

“Of course I have. She acts like she’s lost something, or maybe it’s herself, and forgotten what it is exactly. I’ve tried to remind her,” she insists, “I’ve tried, but she only listens to me in fragments anymore—telling her about the unicorns only lasts a little while, and by the time I have to go it’s gone again, Schmendrick.”

He wet his lips, and his trembling hands dropped the cup. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know what to do anymore, Molly. She’s fading and I’m wearing out and you’re being worked to the bone—”

“Never mind me, you ninny,” she waved a hand, but there was a soft affection to her tone that took back the insult. “Hard work is the only way to work, Mother always said. If I had magic I’d trade you places and you could at least stay warm, but I haven’t, and you can’t cook a decent meal worth half a penny.” She reached across the table and pulled his hat off. “As it is, you’re tired, and you can’t answer his call if you’re dead on your feet. Go lie down for a while. I’ll listen for you.”

He didn’t argue with her aloud, just gave her a plaintive look as he thought of the number of staircases between the scullery and his room, until she rolled her eyes and waved to a corner by the fire.

“Go on, go to sleep. I won’t go to bed for a while yet; I’ll wake you when I go.”

The magician reached for his hat as he stood. “How exactly are you going to wake me…?”

“Depends how hard you are to rouse. I’ve got a bucket of wash-water I could use if you don’t respond to shaking.”

He hoped he’d wake before that. The cat yawned and leapt down from her lap to beat him to the blanket in the corner, rubbing itself all over the thin cotton. Schmendrick sighed. “Does he scratch?”

Molly gave him a grin. “Not if you’re nice to him.” She took back his hat. “You can’t wear your hat to bed, idiot.”

He lay down and dragged his hands across his eyes, and the last he saw before he was asleep was Molly Grue with his hat askew on her head, and she was humming.

Schmendrick was mortal again, but of course the unicorns had no reason to care about his or Molly’s mortality, so he shielded them best he could as the herd thundered past. He looked at her, about to ask if she was alright—

Her eyes were wide and her mouth was open, and the brilliant beauty of all the unicorns in the world was reflected in her face. Molly didn’t seem to know where to look, until she craned her neck and focused somewhere dreamily beyond them all, and even then Schmendrick didn’t look away from her.

He understood as well as she did that no mortal thing was ever meant to see all the unicorns in the world, so he watched them in her eyes and cheeks instead, and thought it was almost the same.

When they were all gone but one and Lir was relearning to stand, the three of them looked to the cliff and saw her standing there.

“Wait,” Schmendrick called.

“Amalthea!” shouted the prince.

“Please,” Molly cried. The unicorn turned her head away from them, and Molly covered her mouth as Schmendrick wished harder than anything he’d kept silent.

They travelled together, over mountains and fields and through valleys and cities, and at night Molly stole his cloak until he finally complained so much that she rolled over to drape the arm of it over his shoulder and put her bare feet on his thigh and his knee to get him to shut up. He grumbled the first time, not really meaning it but feeling he ought to at least pretend to be disgruntled; she swatted him and tucked an arm under her head, and was asleep before he finished protesting.

Which was good, because he didn’t really mind. She was warm, and had a softness in sleep that the set of her shoulders hid when she was awake. Schmendrick put her hair out of her face and tucked his cloak a little more around her. She curled narrow fingers around the collar.

They slept well most nights, after settling.

Sometimes as they travelled Molly thought she saw a flash of white in the trees, and her heart would skip a beat. Sometimes as they unraveled enchantments Schmendrick thought he felt the deep current of unicorn magic twist with his spells, and he would feel his throat constrict. But she was never nearby. Molly saw only deer or rabbits, and Schmendrick imagined too much.

They were together, they told people who asked, and that was all. (It wasn’t; the tone of Schmendrick’s voice and the faint smirk twitching the corners of Molly’s mouth gave away that much. But it wasn’t exactly a lie, because they were together, nearly always nowadays, and what of it if sometimes they were… _more_ together?)

Those moments came when they were alone-together, wandering down this road or that, and he would say something that made her give him the look that said she thought he was absolutely ridiculous, the one where she crinkled her nose just so and twisted her mouth into a funny crooked smile; or she would catch him mumbling to himself and making odd hand gestures as if practicing, and push him off his horse, laughing that he didn’t need to do that anymore. Either way, those moments found them in a tangle of limbs and leaves and laughter, tumbling on the ground, and ended inevitably with Molly pulling bits of foliage from her hair and Schmendrick trying to get his hat back from her.


End file.
